The562’s coverage of Lakewood Athletics is sponsored by J.P. Crawford, Class of 2013.
The562’s coverage of Millikan Athletics for the 2025-26 school year is sponsored by Brian Ramsey and TLD Law.
The562’s high school soccer coverage for the 2025-26 season is sponsored by Long Beach Poly soccer alum Kennedy Justin.
Christmas came early for the Millikan Rams.
In some December Moore League girls’ soccer action, Millikan traveled to Lakewood to face off with the Lancers on Tuesday night. The Rams came out with a dominant 7-0 win at the end of the match.
“I just felt happy for the team,” Millikan junior Harper Young said. “I’m excited to see where this takes us, and I just hope we can keep going as a team.”
Lakewood was coming off a 1-0 win against defending Moore League champions Long Beach Poly. Even with this in mind, both teams knew this was going to be a whole new game.
“We had the right approach, understanding that any given day, any given team can beat you,” Millikan Head Coach Tino Nuñez said. “The last thing we needed to do was take steps backwards, so I think the girls knew what this night was about, especially after they had their big win against Poly.”
As the fog was settling in at John Ford Stadium, the Rams wasted no time getting ahead and putting themselves on the board. Just 42 seconds into the game, Millikan went up 1-0 on a goal from sophomore Adelyn Murphy.
“Her energy – right off the whistle, she just took off,” Nuñez said of Murphy. “If we could put that initial pressure and kind of disrupt whatever they’re going to try to do today, we could cause some problems, and she, right away, caused that.”
The Rams were in complete control of the game and were attacking down the left flank. Junior Alexandra Rios took a shot in this first minute that was tailing right when it was blocked by the Lakewood keeper. That block landed at the feet of Murphy, who touched it in for the score.
“She’s hungry to score, taps it in, gets us up,” Nuñez said. “She’s strong running through and always contributing to what we’re doing. She does well non-stop causing problems.”
Things slowed down after that first goal, but Millikan maintained possession for most of the half. Winning battles and having key first touches gave the Rams some other looks at the goal, but their next score came in the 14th minute.
Finding themselves in front of the Lancers’ goal, a back-and-forth between Millikan players allowed for another easy finish for the visitors. This time, it was Rios who put it away off a Murphy assist to give the Rams a 2-0 lead.
“[Rios] is more of the composed and technical one who does the dirty work, the one cleans it up,” Nuñez said.
Before the first half ended, Millikan tacked on one more. Rios drew a foul inside Lakewood’s box, giving the Rams a penalty kick in the 28th minute. Senior Gissel Fang stepped up to the spot and slotted it away to make the score 3-0 after the first 40.
Young said Nuñez reminded his team that they came to win during halftime, sparking their energetic second half. Although they already had three goals on the board, Young said her team slowed down a little after the first score, but their halftime meeting gave them another boost.
“You want to keep the standard high no matter who you’re playing against, no matter what the score is,” Nuñez said. “We still want to be working on the things that we talk about because the job’s never done.”
Less than five minutes into the second half, the halftime spark showed itself. It was Rios again who took the ball up from the 25 yard line into the box, where she was able to get around Lakewood defenders and put it away into the bottom right corner.
“She’s a player that thinks outside the box and can change games at any point,” Nuñez said of Rios. “She knows when to change her speeds. She understands when she has to pick it up, she understands when she has to put her foot on it, and then when she needs to take people on. She’s shifty, good on the ball and all of that is what makes her special.”
In the 53rd minute, the Lancers looked like they were going to have a chance when a ball came overhead on the left side into space, but an offsides call stunted that movement.
“This game opened up a lot of little windows that we can improve on,” Lakewood Head Coach Angel Ayala said. “Understanding where we really need to improve on, which is the midfield and tracking back and following players – that’s something that we lack on, and we really saw that today, and that kind of hurt us a lot. Tomorrow we go back to the drawing board and go from there, and hopefully we can do a better job next game.”
Two minutes after that offsides call, Millikan went back on the attack. A cross from the right side off the foot of sophomore Alyssa Carillo landed at the feet of fellow sophomore Ellie Carungcong. On her first touch, Carungcong took a shot which deflected off a Lakewood defender and into their goal, making the score 5-0.
“We knew it was going to be a tough competition. We know how good of a school they are, and every single position of players that they have on that team is top notch,” Ayala said.
Millikan continued to maintain possession while swinging the ball around the field, focusing on building their attack out of the back and on the left side through senior London Perez. In the 66th minute, a quick breakaway by Carungcong saw her taking the ball down the left side to the line. She slotted it back and across to Carrillo, who kept up with the quick pace and calmly touched it in to put the Rams further ahead in a 6-0 score.
“I figured if we could get them to shift to one side and then quickly swing it the other way and find that weak side, we could kind of take space and expose them on that,” Nuñez said. “We did a good job in some moments and that led to some goals.”
The dominance continued into the final minutes. With less than five minutes on the clock, Millikan kept applying pressure on the Lancer defense. With her back to the goal, Carrillo gave a one-touch pass back to Young, who used her first touch to take a shot. In a smooth sailing ball, the goal ended up on the right side to put the Rams up 7-0.
“We have other threats and when you have games like this with different goal scores, it’s always nice,” Nuñez said. “You have threats in different areas of the field, and that’s always a good problem to have.”
This would ultimately be the final score for the visitors after the full match. Millikan improved to 5-1-1 overall and 4-0 in the Moore League to sit atop the standings.
“We’re feeling good,” Young said. “We came in confident, and we just needed to pick it up a little bit more, but I think we did in the end. We’re just gonna keep working from here.”
Although the result was lopsided, Ayala said his priority is making sure his team stays healthy. With a lot of the season left to go, the head coach acknowledged the strength of Millikan as an opponent.
“We have two subs, and we look across and they have about 20 subs. It is hard to compete against a powerhouse like that,” Ayala said. “Hopefully next game we have more legs and more depth first, so we can continue to compete against them. Continuing to motivate the girls and stay positive is the biggest thing. We don’t want to walk onto the field defeated already, we want to try to motivate them as much as we can and keep them going.”
The Rams’ return to Moore League action on Thursday at Compton, but they will chase a Best in the West Tournament championship on Saturday as the holiday break starts.
Despite the loss, Lakewood feels like they learned a lot from this game. They’ll keep their heads up moving forward with their next Moore League match set up at Jordan in the new year.
“At the end of the day, I told my girls, ‘We never gave up, didn’t matter what the score was, just don’t give up and stay positive,’” Ayala said. “That’s the most important thing that we took out of this game.”
